Mobile vehicle X-ray inspection system boosts frontline security

The use of rapidly-deployable and highly-portable X-ray systems that can be used in public places, especially ports, airports, railway and underground stations, has grown substantially in recent years.
This mirrors a growing awareness that such areas have traditionally been ‘soft’ high-pedestrian-traffic terrorist targets.
The latest technology available is the SVXi small vehicle X-ray inspection system, a rapid deployment, mobile X-ray system that can be set up and operational in under ten minutes and offers sub-millimetre resolution across an entire vehicle (up to the size of a transit van).
It was jointly developed by security specialist 3DX-Ray and the Home Office Scientific Development Branch (HOSDB) and can produce a full-resolution image in seconds, so increasing the probability of detection and reducing the probability of false alarms.
The system includes sophisticated image processing and enhancement abilities as well as advanced materials differentiation.
With thorough physical searches taking anything up to eight hours, the SVXi system can also increase throughput time in a wide range of security applications, such as customs, public events and conferences, and can also be deployed in explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) incidents to scan suspect vehicles.
The system can simply be driven to a site, used and then moved on, producing the image without ever having to touch or move the suspect vehicle – crucial for a safe threat detection operation.
This offers advantages over fixed installations. A single unit can be deployed across an entire region wherever the need arises and its mobility makes it difficult for a terrorist to plan a route avoiding X-ray security.
The SVXi system utilises 3DX-Ray’s line scan technology that can ‘see’ through up to 30mm of solid steel. With a variety of image processing modes, including mono view, invert view, continuous zoom and pan, image rotatation and histogram analysis, the SVXi system offers ‘best in class’ images of any comparable systems worldwide. 
The system also incorporates 3DX-Ray’s DeepFocus™ algorithm to enhance contrast in dark regions while still retaining fine-wire contrast with no loss of data. Automatic calibration also reduces operator training times.
The SVXi can be mounted on a wide range of transportation, from sophisticated multi-terrain vehicles to low-cost motorised trailers.
SVXi’s technology builds upon 3DX-Ray’s advanced scanning and threat-detection X-ray equipment which is used at airports and terminals around the world. 
Another of its products, the FlatScan-TPXi – a state-of-the-art portable X-ray detector panel just 5cm deep and designed specifically for bomb detection – is being used by British Transport Police’s rapid-deployment teams for checking bomb and other threats across London. 
3DX-Ray was established in 1996 to exploit original research undertaken at The Nottingham Trent University on stereoscopic and multiple-view X-ray imaging technologies.